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General Web Building forum

In the last couple of months this forum seems to have become a breeding ground for spam posts masquerading as 'dumb' questions (which FTP software, best website designing tools, best SEO tools etc) always accompanied by links to web design companies in the footer.

Sadly, once these sorts of things are there they seem to act as incitement for others to post further spam in the replies, with the result that this forum is full of unhelpful rubbish.

Any chance we could have a clear out of these threads, or at least lock them? There is one particular user who I have reported before but won't name here who seems to have started a fair few of them.

I have noticed the same thing but unfortunately they aren’t technically breaking any rules (and I don’t have the power to make the rules) so, since we’re bound to our free democratic heritage (well, you Brits might think otherwise ) and unless the rules are changed to forbid stupid questions (and similar replies) we can’t really do anything.

There is another web developer forum that has been all but ruined by these kinds of posts, many on the topic of SEO ("What is the best SEO?.... and here's a link to my SEO company"). They seem completely obvious to me, but I am surprised when I see "regulars" answer them.

I sure hope the management of this forum manages to create a process to address it. So far, I have seen relatively little of the garbage on this forum, perhaps it's already been handled pretty well.

...I've always thought of CF as something like a benign dictatorship rather than a democracy....

Same here. If this were a democracy wouldn't we have a much different (better) theme in place for this website?

But seriously, I have seen plenty of moderators openly chastising users who post junk threads and responses (and then locking said threads). It happens. And if we're going to have moderators occasionally chastise those users and lock junk threads, why not simply delete the offending threads/posts entirely? The only thing we're doing by keeping them in tact is storing garbage for posterity, which seems a pretty useless thing to do especially given the impact this has on the forum's usability and searchability.

In my opinion (which I know carries only the greatest of weight), the rules are there to set standards for infraction and banning, and even those are subject to the discretion of the moderators to be more- or less-strict as the situation calls for. When it comes to wiping out clutter I think the rules/guidelines section is irrelevant. In the vast majority of cases you know junk when you see it and I think it can only help the forum to get rid of it.

</soapbox>

So anyway, can someone tell me which are the best SEO tools to drive traffic? And what is the difference between HTML and CSS?

This is also done with signatures. One can’t have a signature for a certain amount of time (a week I think) and with less than five posts. But even more, this has changed in that you fellow members can influence this yourself by demoting new members (using the reputation system) who behave suspiciously. Members with negative reputation can’t add a signature. Of course, this has to happen before they have a signature.

I was just going through the General Web building section and found this thread and as i was nearing the bottom I was just thinking what the heck is this non-sense then I saw Stephan's post and i started to lough out loud.

I was just going through the General Web building section and found this thread and as i was nearing the bottom I was just thinking what the heck is this non-sense then I saw Stephan's post and i started to lough out loud.

Well, I do think there is some information for people that are new in the web development business. I’ve only locked that thread because there was no new info coming in after the initial round.

Meanwhile I’ve revoked the signatures of three members of the type mentioned here because they were very obviously posting unsubstantial and/or unrelated things just to spread their signatures. They are not always posting crap, just sometimes but repeatedly, which isn’t worth a complete ban (yet).